Background


This chapter s focus on electronic monitoring in the workplace directs our attention in two ways. First, the workplace is the main locus for monitoring and surveillance in modern societies .

In 2003, more than half of U.S. companies engage in some form of e-mail monitoring of employees and enforce e-mail policies with discipline or other methods . Twenty-two percent of companies have terminated an employee for e-mail infractions. (American Management Association, 2003,p.1)

The working relation of employer and employee unifies and simplifies these cases. Contrast surveillance in public spaces, where diverse publics may be unaware of the practice, or surveillance in prisons, where there are fewer shared organizational goals. Second, electronic monitoring identifies an important phenomenon , namely where cheap new technology makes surveillance of most employees so easy that it quickly becomes a real organizational option. Other kinds of monitoring, such as urine testing for illegal drugs, are costly and involve professional personnel. (However, we can imagine that this could change with the introduction of automatic routine testing equipment. This reinforces the point that electronic monitoring is a class of surveillance worth distinguishing.) There are two leading approaches to workplace surveillance in the literature. The first emphasizes the power of employers over employees (Botan, 1996). The second takes a managerial perspective and tries to identify and mitigate unexpected consequences of surveillance to the organization (Coombs, 2003). Each of these perspectives has much to teach us and informs our game theoretic analysis. Nonetheless, our account will show that the first perspective gives way to and forms part of the second, which is, in any case, the more general and supportive of an ethical approach to this issue.




Electronic Monitoring in the Workplace. Controversies and Solutions
Electronic Monitoring in the Workplace: Controversies and Solutions
ISBN: 1591404568
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 161

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